Environment

 

It's World Water Day today!    

WWD grew out of a UN Conference on the Environment and development in Rio in 1992 and is focused on putting water quality on the political agenda for the over a billion people living without access to clean water, and the 2.6 billion who lack access to improved sanitation.

• Continue reading

It is ironic that I write this while traveling from Seattle to New York by airplane.  Three years ago I set out to measure my carbon footprint from air travel.  Back in 2007 I clocked nearly 70,000 miles and a carbon footprint on the order of 25 tons of CO2. In 2008 the number dropped to 56,000 miles and about 22 tons of CO2. This year, I've only flown about 29,000 miles for around 10 tons of CO2.

• Continue reading

CivicActions client Rare Conservation has a first of it's kind Masters Program for Conservationists, available in 4 languages. "Students from areas of highest biodiversity around the world implement an entire social marketing campaign designed around a specific conservation goal, by mobilizing constituents in their communities." The degree requires positive impact.

• Continue reading

"Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way to be rich."

I'm feeling 100 times more inspired tonight after reading the Commencement Address by Paul Hawken's (Blessed Unrest) from Sunday, May 3rd. The text is below and speaks for itself! PAUL HAWKEN'S COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if I could give a simple short talk that was “direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate, lean, shivering, startling, and graceful.” Boy, no pressure there. But let’s begin with the startling part. Hey, Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation - but not one peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute that statement. Basically, the earth needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.

• Continue reading

Back in January I posted a blog about my carbon footprint for 2007. With 36 flights spanning nearly 70,000 miles, I had calculate my carbon footprint at a little bit more than 14 tons of CO2, turns out I had some bad numbers in there and overestimated it by maybe 2 or 3 tons.

• Continue reading

Owen put up a website that uses a math problem to get people to think about a very important number, 350ppm CO2.

I just turned is math problem into a short animated video using a website called GoAnimate.com.
Watch my video below:

• Continue reading

On June 15th, the Great Turtle Race 2008 reached its conclusion, after 14 days of people from across the world cheering on their favorite turtles. Organized by TOPP, NOAA, and Drexel University, the Race is a Flash application that processes data from tagged leatherbacks into an animated "turtle race".

• Continue reading

350.org just relaunched their website and a killer video that explains the 350 idea without a word. Good for multilingual explications. Don't misunderestimate the power of 350...

One of the things I love about working at CivicActions is getting to hear about great projects happening in the world. It makes my days seem a little more hopeful and inspired to know that there are really smart people doing really great things.

• Continue reading

Bill McKibben's Project 350 introduces us to the most important number in the world today.

350 is the red line for human beings, as science now tells us that unless we can reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million (ppm), we will cause huge and irreversible damage to the earth. We are currently at 385 ppm and still rising.

To help spread the meme, Ian and I both spent some time making videos this weekend.